Box Score NORTH DARTMOUTH, Mass. – Junior
Emilyann Ashford matched a career best with 12 kills against just one error and senior
Megan Palmer added 11 spikes as the Keene State College women's volleyball team had to work extra on Thursday night, but ended the spring on a positive note with a 3-0 (27-25, 25-13, 34-32) sweep of the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth in Little East Conference action at the Tripp Athletic Center.
Records
- Keene State: 4-1, 4-1 LEC
- UMass-Dartmouth: 2-2, 2-2 LEC
How It Happened
It was not easy for the Owls in their fourth consecutive victory since an opening five-set loss, having to dig out of a big first set deficit for a 27-25 win before seeing big lead of their own get away in the third before eventually prevailing 34-32, but it was nonetheless effective as they won 12 of their final 13 sets on the spring. After hitting .132 and .137 in their first two matches, they hit at least .240 in their final three, including a season-best .291 in a home win over Plymouth State University last Saturday and now .264 tonight. The Corsairs were held to a .117 attack percentage tonight, including .044 and -.062 in the opening two sets, respectively, when KSC went up 2-0 in the match. Ashford's 12 kills match what she recorded in a 2019 season-opening win over Skidmore College. The Owls also got an eight kill (.241 pct.) from effort from
Sydney Johnson, who finishes the five matches with 45 kills against 11 errors and a .272 hitting percentage. Devon Laing paced UMass-Dartmouth with 11 spikes and 16 digs, but the Corsairs lost 3-0 for the second straight match after opening with 3-0 wins over Castleton University and Rhode Island College.
UMD jumped on KSC early, going in front 12-4 after a pair of kills and two aces from Marley Alexander and still led 19-13 after consecutive blocks by Alexander and Laing, but the Owls came storming back to take the opening set. Trailing 23-17, Keene State put up three in a row to get within that amount. The Corsairs answered, bringing up set point after Gabriella Monico's kill, but they never got the clincher. The Owls scored five in a row and took the lead for the first time (25-24) in the entire set on
Sydney Johnson's kill. This time UMass-Dartmouth held off set point – but only once – as
Kacie Blanchet and
Sydney Johnson set up
Elizabeth Johnson for two straight kills and a 27-25 set win for the Owls. Blanchet finished with 36 assists, seven digs, and two aces.
After a major rally, Keene State carried their momentum over and mostly dominated the second set in a 25-13 win. UMD briefly led by one three times in the early-going, but Blanchet set up Ashford twice in a row as the Owls moved out to a 10-6 lead. The Corsairs tallied the next to, but then came a massive Keene State surge of 11 consecutive points on five kills and four aces, all by Palmer, to make it 21-8. The Owls had no trouble from there, with a kill by
Kelsey Harper and fittingly an ace by
Sydney Johnson to put the Owls up 2-0 in the match. Six of Keene State's eight aces came in the commanding second set win.
The third frame saw KSC attack at a .327 percentage and run out to a big lead, but UMD, after having as many kills as errors in the first two sets, finished with 22 kills and seven miscues while hitting .294 to make things difficult – 34-32 difficult – for the Owls in what did wind up being the clincher despite a 21-14 lead getting away. UMD rattled off a 9-2 burst to tie the match at 23, but could not translate that momentum to get to a fourth set as KSC still had answers. Keene State finished with 21 kills against only three errors in the deciding third set, and overall in the last two had 31 kills and five miscues.
Service Aces
- Palmer finishes her career with 709 kills and likely would have threatened – if not more – to move into the top 10 on KSC's career kills list if she had not missed matches at the end of 2019 due to injury and then seen her senior year severely truncated to just five spring matches. She entered the season with the ninth best career hitting percentage in program history.
- Blanchet finishes her rookie campaign, again just a five-match one, with 153 assists, 56 digs, and 11 aces.
- Keene State lost seven of the first 10 in the all-time series before now winning the last 16 matchups in a row.
Up Next
- Keene State will gear up for the regular fall season that is slated to begin in early September with the Owls traveling to the Springfield College Invitational.
- UMass-Dartmouth has one more match on Thursday, April 29 against Plymouth State University (2-2, 2-2 LEC) at 6:00 p.m.
